What Akbar longs for is the exotic West: which comes to him in the guise of the yellow-haired Mogor dell'Amore with a tale to tell so tangled ( "This was his way: to move toward his goal indirectly, with many detours and divagations") that it will require hundreds of pages of Rushdie's challenging prose.

It was the rule in these days to see gentlemen unsteady after dinner, yet Nance was both surprised and amused when her companion, who had spoken so soberly, began to stumble and waver by her side with the most airy divagations.